


Metalhead

by SylverLining



Category: Titan AE (2000)
Genre: Backstory, Headcanon, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylverLining/pseuds/SylverLining
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Preed was always a creep, but things used to be different. Before the metal plate in his head, Korso trusted him - but getting your brains blown out has a way of changing a guy for the worse. Implied slash. Rated for violence and swearing. Dark. Fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"If you die on me, I will kill you."_  Korso growled through clenched teeth, shoving slow-moving people out of the way.

The place was jammed tight with human traffic, a sweating, crowded cattle pen of a marketplace, piled high with scrap metal and dead ship parts that passed for a street and buildings, a city, a home. All packed full of humans, milling colors and voices, a traffic jam at rush hour, a hill of ants – and Korso just couldn't force his way through.

Not with the bleeding Akrennian in his arms.

He could feel the blood soaking into his shirt already – first thing after this was over, Preed was paying for his dry-cleaning.

_"Is there a fucking doctor on this floating hunk of space shit?"_

Several eyes turned to stare at him – then he could practically feel them narrow. He glared right back, gritting his teeth against the silence.

Humans. So used to scrambling to stay alive and clinging to the edges, they could give as good as they got.

Korso let out a snarl of frustration and clamped his hand down over Preed's forehead just a little more firmly, trying not to imagine that he was actually holding pieces of his skull together. Even if he was.

 _"Well?"_ he snapped – then noticed several people nervously eying one man in a coat that probably used to be white. He was looking pointedly not making eye contact with anyone, trying to slip away into the crowd.

"Hey!" Korso shouted in his best drill-sergeant bark, singling out the poor sap. "You! You got any medical training?" he glared at the man stammered but didn't say any actual words. "Speak up!"

"I – I only treat humans!"

Korso bared his teeth. "Wrong answer."

The man paled, realizing how it had sounded. "No – no, I didn't mean – it's just that Akrennians – their physiology is too different, I wouldn't know what I was-"

_"Then who does?"_

The man swallowed, had the conscience to look sheepish. "You might try the vet..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to whoever catches the most geeky references.

_Five minutes earlier..._

  
The airlock clanged shut behind him. Korso jammed his hands into his pockets, and tried to stop shaking.

"That was way too close," he growled, shrugging deeper into his worn leather overcoat, pulling it tighter against the cold sweat stinging every pore. "Getting damn near impossible to drag that bucket of bolts to a port. Lucky it decided to fuck us over this close to Ganymede, otherwise we'd be chilly, floating corpses right now."

"Oh, re- _lax_ ," Preed sloped along behind him, lanky limbs hanging loose and willowy, a study in contrasts to Korso's guarded, stiff hunch. "We made it, didn't we?"

"Just fuckin' barely." Korso shot a glance over his shoulder at the Akrennian with the heavy-lidded eyes. Half-sleepwalking, even minutes after they'd both almost died. Didn't anything faze him? "The Valkyrie wasn't meant to be run by a crew of two. Much less with a goddamn hole in engineering!  _Fuck!"_ he made an odd, jerking motion with his foot that might have been an innocuous stumble from any other human, but Preed recognized it.

_"Six weeks..."_ Preed trilled in a singsong voice, staying consciously out of boot's reach.

"Yeah, yeah."

Six weeks - that was how long it had taken Korso to get the cast off his big toe the last time he got mad at a solid steel bulkhead. Amazing how long a tiny thing like a goddamn toe took to heal. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. The danger was over now, he didn't need the adrenaline slamming through his veins so hard he could hear the blood pound in his ears.

"We need help," he sighed at last. "Two more crew at least."

"What, I'm not good enough for you anymore?" Preed smirked.

"If you feel like growing an extra head and four arms to man a combat turret, keep a handle on the helm, and make sure the engine doesn't spontaneously combust -  _again_  – then be my guest... Two extra heads." Korso shook his own at the unwelcome mental image - a one-headed Preed was more than enough for him.

"Mm. More hands mean more cuts taken out of our profit."

"Won't be any profit if we're dead in space because everything falls apart before the two of us can put it back together."

"Point taken." Independent ears swiveling, Preed slipped through a slow-moving crowd of stocky quadrupeds, like a tall shepherd winding through his flock. Spaceports were always madhouses, but the one nearest Ganymede was particularly packed and crazy. Beings of all shapes and sizes milled around them, everywhere they tried to step. The odor of a multitude of species all crammed into one tiny space was overpowering and there was no clear route of escape: a situation Preed tried to avoid at all times. To a claustrophobic person, this would have been a little slice of Hell.

The thin, flexible Akrennian probably could have squeezed through the narrow gaps on his own, but there wasn't a need; he fell back behind Korso, letting the human's broad shoulders and sharp elbows clear the way.

"But the first thing's the ship. More hands also need more oxygen, and at least the half-true promise that the thing won't explode the moment they set foot on it. I wouldn't mind that reassurance either. That means a new atmosphere converter, a patch for the gaping hole in the wall-"

"Hull." Korso grunted out of habit - Preed routinely called parts of the ship 'wall,' 'floor,' 'left side,' 'right side'  _(bulkhead, deck, port, starboard, damn it!)_  just to annoy him, and Korso was psychologically incapable of letting it go, even after all this time. He barely even noticed the ritual anymore, but probably would have if it were missing.

"Whatever. Emergency oxygen supplies, new thruster belt so we can actually limp away from this -" Preed pried himself away from a being that looked like nothing so much as a living mountain of hair that smelled of rotten eggs, with no concept of personal space. "This  _lovely_  place - and a new flux capacitor, at the very least." He frowned, and Korso could see the dollar signs - or the Akrennian equivalent symbol - reluctantly adding up in his cheap little brain.

The Valkyrie must really be in dire straits, if necessity was fighting greed in Preed's head, and necessity won.

"I'd be  _really_  happy with some self-sealing stem bolts, but one can't have everything."

"Good luck finding those here," Korso glanced around at the makeshift city with a dubious frown.

"Oh, you'd be surprised what I can find, and for such fantastic bargains," Preed waved the concerns away with a flicker of long, bony fingers. So that was why he was so cavalier about spending large amounts of cash - it wouldn't be a large amount. he had one of his black-market contacts in mind, or at least someone he could beg, bribe, threaten or seduce to part with the necessary equipment. Preed never quite told him just how he got half the things they needed, and Korso never asked.

"So could we stop being so pessimistic for one second? Have a little faith in your first mate."

Korso harrumphed. "Still. The Val's old-class. Most of its working parts are ten years obsolete, maybe even from B.E." A frown pulled at the corner of Korso's mouth, and his eyes went dark. "Might have to check the Human Quarter."

Preed let out a jarring gasp that made Korso jump, and clapped his hand to his chest. "The  _HUMAN_ Quarter?" he gaped. "Say it's not true!"

Korso rolled his eyes. "Next time you better be having a real heart attack. I'm in no mood for theatrics, Preed." he cast a hooded glare toward a far-off section of the mazelike space port, where he could just see a chain-link fence rising up over the vendor stalls, buildings and houses made of scrap metal and dead ships. He was quiet for a moment, coming to a stop. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth, out of the corner of his mouth; they'd had to shout to hear each other easily over the roar of the milling crowd before, but now his muttered words were for Preed's sharp ears only.

"I just don't like going back in that damn cage."

Preed looked up at him, and for once the ever-present smirk wasn't there. Instead the Akrennian was watching him carefully, all seriousness and a strange glimpse of perception. "I'm sure I can find everything we need from the Human quarter," he said slowly. "There's no need for you to come with."

Korso paused, and really considered it for a moment. He had to admit he had half a mind to take his first mate up on the out. Say what you would about Preed's social skills; he knew when Korso was genuinely unsettled. And the offer was appreciated and tempting - just find a bar and cozy up for a while, let Preed dig through the madness for the things they needed. He was the one who really wanted them, anyway. But then he shook his head.

"No, you're not going in there alone. Not everybody there likes Akrennians as much as I do - and I don't like you at all." He said quickly. Then he took a deep breath and gave a little nod to himself. "No, I'll go along - keep you out of trouble. We really don't need any more enemies... and the last time you pranced off to have fun without me, we both ended up banned for life from my favorite bar!" Korso folded his arms and furrowed his brow at the memory.

Preed spread his hands and gave what would probably be a winning smile on anyone else. "Can I help it if the Dabo girls and boys were all over me? They're very persuasive."

"You didn't need much persuading, the way I heard it - and you still owe them a new Tongo wheel-"

"Well, in any case it certainly wasn't my fault, you're just cranky you missed the fun-"

"The bartender was furious - and the local law enforcement and station brass, I thought the Captain was going to pick up that baseball and wing it at your head! God only knows why  _you_  screwing around led to  _me_  being permanently banned from Quark's."

Korso made a noise that was half irritated snort, half guffaw in spite of himself, and cuffed his first mate on the shoulder in a way that was friendly to humans, but unfamiliar to just about everyone else. Fortunately, Preed had spent enough time around this particular human to know that this was a strange expression of affection, not aggression. Humans truly did do strange things - but maybe this was just a Korso thing.

"No, no, I've seen what happens when I let you off your leash. I'll go with you." He shot another, more resolute look at the chain-link fence in the distance.

Then something seemed to occur to him, and he frowned, casting a disturbed glance around. "Speaking of. Why haven't I been carded yet?"

Preed looked around too, turning back toward the airlock they'd just passed through. "It is a tad unusual, no welcoming committee. Maybe they're having trouble with the -"

_"HUMAN!"_

"Aaand here we go. 'Bout damn time!" Korso turned to face the hulking pile of muscle and gun barrel lumbering toward him. the guard looked like nothing so much as a huge Earth boar, standing upright and mean and nasty. But then, these guys always looked mean.

Korso reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and dug out a laminated card and sheaf of folded, stained and torn paper. A few of the rips looked like bullet holes, but the important parts were still legible. "Visa and papers, wrapped up all nice and pretty just for you-"

"Get back to your cell!" The guard snarled, towering over the human, bringing his gun forward. Korso's eyes widened - spaceport guards were always less than friendly toward humans - and those who hung around with them - but he'd never actually had one of them point the business end of a gun at him before.

"This is a legal Human visa and passport, ex-military level-3 clearance," He said, trying to keep his growl level. "And I ain't in anyone's cell-"

"Get  _BACK_  to your  _CELL!_ " The guard clearly belonged to the 'if it doesn't work once, say it louder and meaner' school. Then he turned and waved a beefy arm up over the crowd, signaling to other uniformed hulks shoving their ways toward them. "He's over here!"

"Are you fucking blind and deaf as well as stupid?" Korso squared his shoulders and jaw and gave his best drill-sergeant face, glaring up at the towering giant, and shoved the legal papers into his face. "HUMAN, PAPERS, VISA, LEVEL 3-"

"Probably forged!"

"The  _hell_  they are!" Korso spat.

They were, of course.

It was almost unheard-of for any human to be walking around with valid papers. They expired yearly, took at least three to apply for and get approved, and could be revoked (through legal process, or at gunpoint) if its carrier so much as looked at another species funny. The only ones allowed to hop from port to port aside from the drifter colonies without hassle were the working girls and boys - and Korso was nowhere near pretty enough to pass as one of them.

Fortunately, Preed's forgeries were the best. Korso's IDs had stood up to the highest scrutiny, and he was sure they could pass one more set of piggy eyes. But the guard didn't even look at it - and cocked his weapon.

"Escaped slaves don't have visas!"

"EXACTLY, you overgrown side of bacon-"

The huge nostrils flared in fury.  _"WHAT YOU CALL ME?"_

Preed quickly slipped in front of Korso, positioning himself between him and the guard, and spread his hands in a placating manner. "Ah, my friend didn't mean to offend, good sir! You see, it's an Earth compliment - bacon is a very precious and renowned, uh, substance, on his -"

"Shut up!" Without a pause, the guard slammed the butt of his rifle against the side of Preed's head with a nasty  _crack_. The force of the blow whipped the Akrennian's head around, sent him spinning -

_"Mistake."  
_  
In one smooth motion, Korso reached out and caught Preed with one arm, balled the other one into a fist - and punched the bastard square in the pig snout.

The porcine guard stared, not quite comprehending that this tiny, tuskless human had had the utter balls to punch him. Never mind that it had only felt like a little love-tap, it was the principle, damn it -

_"BACKUP!"_  he bellowed. "BACKUP! OFFICER DOWN! ASSAULT! BRUTALITY!  _WILD, CRAZED HUMANS ON THE RAMPAGE!"_

And before Korso could react, there were bearlike arms grabbing him from behind, nearly wrenching him off his feet, the precious visa flying out of his hand, he lost his grip on Preed and the Akrennian disappeared somewhere behind him and Korso couldn't see if he'd gotten his feet back or was being trampled underneath the -

"You're under arrest for escaping lawfully indentured employment, assaulting an officer, presenting a false ID, and theft of property-"

"What the hell  _property_  did I _-"_

" _YOU!"_

But as Korso opened his mouth to roar a retort and raised his boot to kick at where he best guessed these guys kept their junk -

Bang. Thunderous gunfire of projectile bullets and buzz-zaps of particle weapons - oh, for God's sake, how stupid was anyone to actually fire a weapon in a pressurized environment? - Korso felt something hot flash right over his head, singing his hair - the goon holding him collapsed like a ton of bricks. He was suddenly freed - and immediately dropped into a crouch. It was not a good idea to be standing tall with gunshots and people running everywhere screaming, he couldn't see a thing -

"Preed? Where the fuck are-"

And then he saw where the shots were coming from. A small clump of humans, boxed in by armed guards but breaking free, some shackled at the arms and wrists and ankles but still firing or swinging punches, using chains as garrotes, and all at once they made a break for the Human Quarter. If they could just get past the chain-link fence they were home free, no laws applied there except humans' own.

_"Cover us!"_  One of them shrieked - a kid, all bony knees and elbows and punk purple bangs - and hurled something into the air. Korso barely had time to track the trajectory of the object with his eyes - the gun - and reach up to grab it, when he was run into from behind, tripped over by someone scrambling to get away.

Korso fell to the steel-grated floor, opportunity lost - he could still see the gun flying through the air, precious salvation -

Then a hand reached up and caught it. A very thin, bony, long-fingered hand.

Preed whirled around and opened fire on the pursuing shock troops, energy pistol's kickback making him jerk back violently with every round. He swayed on his feet, forehead and one eye bashed shut and bloodied, but he was grinning.

Korso hadn't known Akrennians could look heroic. Especially not this one. Preed was so much more the  _piss-your-pants-run-away-and-hide_ sort. But there he was, and Korso could feel the adrenaline coming off him in waves, pointed teeth flashing in a wide, manic grin - did his joy come from helping the humans, fighting back against an unjust martial law - or just the gunfight itself? Korso had never seen him with this look of wild exhilaration, goddamn he was full of surprises -

Then something flashed behind and above his head - and Preed was down. No stagger, no pause, no moment of reaction, just down. Sprawling like a limp ragdoll, head connecting with the steel grated floor with a nasty clanging crack. The gun flew out of his nerveless hand and skittered across the floor, kicked and trampled by desperate feet running every which way -

_"Shit!"_ Korso gasped- and made a strange, half-formed lunging movement, his first motion that wasn't economical, precise and planned. He had to move somewhere but wasn't sure where - his two choices were in entirely different directions and both pulled him out of instinct.

He could either go after the gun, grab it, and start firing away, blast some of these bigoted assholes to where the Drej had sent his planet and whole life, do some damage, probably die immediately but at least take some down with him - or he could dive toward Preed, scoop him up off the floor like a pile of Akrennian wreckage, and run like hell.

Damn it, indecision in battle was something he hadn't experienced since he was a teenage cadet - he'd mastered himeslf and his impulses, that shit cost lives -

All around him there were still bullets flying and people slamming into and jostling him, nearly knocking him off his feet -

_Grab the gun, just_ GRAB THE FUCKING GUN  _and_ SHOOT SOMETHING _, remember your training, you're a soldier -_

Preed still wasn't moving. Neck and limbs splayed at wrong angles, like a ball-joint doll dropped on the floor, Korso shouldn't have been able to see his face from here but he could, but even that wasn't the worst -

His ear was gone. A burned, bloody hole where his right ear had been, and above that - his head was wrong, like the sharp angles of his joints. It looked - collapsed, crushed, somehow disgjointed, like his skull might crack apart like an eggshell, and out would spill -

Korso forgot the gun and launched himself for Preed. Surprised the hell out of himself, wasn't even entirely sure what he was doing or why he was going against his years of training -  _programming_  -

He picked up the broken pile of his friend into his arms, and ran like hell for the chain-link fence.

 


	3. Chapter 3

There weren't enough windows in this shack. On Earth, before everything exploded in a frenzy of blinding light and fire, she'd had a room with a skylight, floor-length windows that opened up to a wide view of rolling green fields dotted with fluffy white sheep like clouds in a sky of green.

Now it was all steel and rust and cobwebs and  _dank -_ for God's sake, this was a space station, not a submarine. Where did all the wet come from? Condensation from the oxygen recycling system, maybe, she grumbled to herself, wringing out a sad, sopping sock onto the floor. Didn't bother with cleaning up the puddle, the wet would be back before she was done.

She was considering for the hundredth time moving to another God-awful (but drier) pile of scrap metal humans called homes - when her door flew off its hinges.

The thing was solid. And locked. But still it fell like a domino and slammed against the floor with an almighty  _CLANG._

She whirled to face the open door, and the stocky figure stepping inside. Stood toe-to-toe with the much larger newcomer (home invader?) and didn't budge an inch.

"Knock much?" she said, deadpan, while her hand flew to the small of her back and fingers found the grip of a little gun. It was out in an instant and pointed at the man, humming softly as it powered up.

"No free hands," the stranger grunted with difficulty; he was out of breath and shook with - what? Fatigue? Injury? Trauma? He was definitely human, hunched over strangely, holding something to his chest. And he didn't seem to be reaching for a weapon - which meant she could vent a little instead of open fire.

"The hell do you think you're doing, barging into a lady's house?" she shouted, still pointing the gun at him. But if he noticed he was being held at gunpoint, he didn't seem to care. "I am  _armed,"_ she said - this guy had to be soft in the head. Still not good, the slow ones could be the most dangerous.

He didn't seem to hear. Instead he stepped forward into the better light of her living room, and held up the limp thing in his arms.

"...Oh." The gun came down.

"Fix him." The rough-looking man growled, but it wasn't menacing. Strange - he had the look of a soldier who'd just fought his way through Hell and back, giving as good as he got, taking down everyone in his path before they had a chance to do the same to him. But now he wasn't threatening - he was too tired to threaten. He swayed on his feet. Keeping himself standing through sheer boneheaded stubbornness and refusal to drop the bleeding Akrennian in his arms.

Now he was going under for the last time, reaching out for a life preserver.

"I only know Earth animals," she started - had to have a disclaimer, didn't want to raise false hopes. "Not even that great with humans-"

"I know. No one else," the man panted, looking up at her from under heavy eyelids. False hope or not, she seemed to be his only one.  _"Fix him."_

A long moment of silence... then, at last, she nodded.

"Okay. Follow me," she bustled off toward a back room of her cramped tower of scrap, waving for him to follow. A door slid open and there was a slightly more spacious room, with better lighting and a table made of some ship's wing or tail. "Now, I'm not making any promises," She said, and kept saying something else, but Korso wasn't listening.

He set the lanky idiot -  _damn it, Preed, you had to pick NOW to try out heroics for size, you of all people -_ down on the table as gently as he knew how, lowering the damaged head last to the metal and not letting go, still feeling like that bashed-up skull would fall right apart if he did -

_If you die on me, I'll kill you -_

"Hey. Hey!"

Korso was shaken from his reverie by a sharp voice - belonging to a compact, solidly-built woman with her hands on her hips. She'd just stuck her chestnut-and-gray hair up under a shower cap, and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. The sight of those things, and the smell of whatever antibacterial she'd just put on her hands dragged him back to reality. Smelled like a hospital in here. Korso hated hospitals.

Then her steely eyes softened a bit at his uncomprehending stare. "You all right?"

Korso shut his eyes, shook his head to clear it. "Yeah," he said despite the head-shake. "Just thinking." He looked down at his shirt and coat, all spattered with murky ochre. His hands, covered in the stuff. A sharp exhale through his nose, something that tried to be a laugh but didn't come close. "Nothing gets Akrennian blood out."

She had to smile. "You can let go," she said in a gentler tone, one she used to break out decades ago to calm down wild-eyed stallions. "I'll take it from here, see what we've got going on." She moved over to examine Preed's fragile skull as Korso hesitantly stepped away. She nodded toward the door back out to the living area. "You just set a spell out there, son, you look dead on your feet."

But Korso didn't move. Didn't say anything, just looked from her to the pile of long limbs and ragged breathing on the table, and back. Arms folded across his chest, feet planted.

"You don't need to see this." She recognized that look. Seen it a thousand times. "I'll take care of your friend. You just-"

"He's not my friend," Korso said like a knee-jerk reflex. His hand flew to his face, rubbed at his stubbled chin, messed with his nose. Dammit, he'd been meaning to work on those poker tells.

"Whatever. I'll do my best. Now, out with you."

Korso made a strange sound in his throat, like he was trying to clear it and say something at the same time. "Thank you," he got out at last - clearly, he was a little out of practice. "Miz...?"

"Rue." She didn't look up, seemed to have forgotten he was there; her focus had turned internal, to the workings of joint and bone knit together under ashen, inhuman skin.

His frown deepened and brow furrowed together; he seemed about to say something about that - instead he just gave a jerky nod. "I'm Korso. That's Preed." He made himself look one more time at the contorted face under the rubber gloves -

And without another word, turned and stalked out the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

There had to be something better to do than snoop around a stranger's home, but Korso didn't know what it was. He could completely ignore the fact that he was a wanted man on this station, go back to the docked ship and make sure the scrap-hunk hadn't fallen apart right there on the pylon. Bark some orders at the poor shmucks working on it, bully them into going a couple notches faster. But for what? He couldn't leave the station yet.

Hell, he couldn't even leave this room.

So instead he paced around and around like a rat in a box, staring at the hunks of machinery and medical equipment piled along the bulkheads, and the cluttered remnants of a dead world. Mostly having to do with long-dead animals. A dusty, ancient saddle lay atop a climbing pile of scrap, in a strange place of respect, and all along the rusty walls were photos and paintings of horses.

Korso never understood the allure of wrangling giant dumb animals – he got enough of that in his day-to-day dealings with post-Earth society.

_"Shit."_

He cracked a painful knot in his neck, shook out the tension in his arms and shoulders. It was an uncomfortable feeling, going quietly stir-crazy, but there just wasn't anything else to do.

Because that woman with the bonesaw ( _Rue_  – nice name, were her parents fortune tellers?) might come back out here at any moment and tell him... what? That Preed was fine, that it looked a lot worse than it was, Akrennian skulls fixed up real easy? Or that he'd better start looking for a new first mate.

Security would still be after him. But he didn't have reason to believe Rue would turn him in – refugee-tough drifters tended to band together to protect their own, and fend off any outside influences or manhunts. But human raids still happened. He just had to hope that a lone human with a forged visa wasn't high on their list of priorities. He was moderately safe in the Human Sector – but once you were inside the chain-link fence, past the barbed wire, it was hard to get back out again.

Korso never did well like that. He didn't like situations without a clear way out, whether that was self-imposed or physical. He didn't like it when the lights went out and the walls closed in.

Like now.

Or like they had years ago. Before the Valkyrie, when it had just been him and Preed and they really were a pair of drifters just as much as any of the poor pathetic ghetto human rats he tried so hard to distance himself from. No ties, and no ship. You needed your own ship out here in the badlands - it was more than a place to call your own, not that many humans were lucky enough to have that anymore. Being shipless was like being homeless - and not in the way the entire human race was homeless now. Without one, you were stuck sleeping in doorways or alleyways in colossal dump of space stations you could never escape. You either stowed away on a cargo vessel or paid for the shuttle - and humans could never pay.

And that's what they did. Figured out it was better to run together and pool what they could scrape together or lift from anyone a little less wise or vigilant, people not as accustomed to living in a harsh galaxy, life on the fringes, who weren't on the high end of protection. And that was usually humans. There was survivor's guilt, and then there was 'taking-advantage-of-survivors' guilt, and Korso had both in spades. But he never let either slow him down that much. And together they moved fast, figured out the ins and outs of life outside the drifter colonies.

_Armageddon was the great equalizer._  Everything he owned, everything he'd done, a decorated military career meant precisely dick, and as soon as the dust cleared he found himself right at the bottom with the rest of humanity. Presidents and kings sat in the garbage along with everyone else trying to claw their way back up. And if the entire human race was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it just gave Joseph Korso more incentive to pick himself up and move on while everyone else was paralyzed.

So they learned.  _He_  learned, Korso corrected himself. Preed already knew how to slip under the radar and keep himself alive and in money for another day. Korso was just a fast learner. He had to be. After a year or so behind that chain-link fence, he swore he'd never set foot in another goddamn colony again, never go back in that cage. Preed and his talent for forged documents and back-alley contacts were his slimy, slippery way out. Freedom. He'd take it any day.

But out of one cage and into another, at least at first. Hiding in shitholes even worse than human ghettos, stowing away in the dark, tight cargo holds, crammed in with other illegal goods. Hunching silent and helpless while the metal groaned like it was going to fall apart at any moment. Holding rigidly, painfully still as footsteps clanked on metal above their heads, shivering against the ice forming in their breath. Nobody ever thought to insulate the cargo holds against the vacuum of space.

There was never a way out of there, either. That was the first place he'd felt the crushing weight against his lungs, the first time the walls closed in on him. The first time the flying brick's engines cut out and everything went pitch-black.

"What the hell?" he barked, he couldn't help it, everything had just  _stopped._

" _Hush!_ " Preed hissed, and Korso felt a rush of sour breath on his face. "They've cut all power. Must be a Drej scout nearby, we're floating dead to avoid detection..." he was whispering now, and without the roar of the engine the silence was just as crushing as the claustrophobia.

"Their sensors can pick us up  _talking?_ "

"By all means let's find out, shall we?"

Korso grits his teeth and hushes.

Human crafts, even single-man cramped fighters he'd flown a lifetime ago as a cadet, they had room to breathe, he wouldn't be caught and killed if he moved a muscle or made a sound, everything wasn't collapsing on him like space's vacuum in reverse, and there wasn't someone else there jammed in with him, sharp elbows in his ribs, all angles and bone -

"It'd be a quick way to go," Preed murmured against his shallow, rapid breathing.

"What?" Korso gasped some stale air into his lungs, just couldn't get enough oxygen -

"If the Drej were to board us, the first thing this particular crew would do is jettison the cargo. We're surrounded by less-than-legal substances. Even less legal than our presence here, actually." He continued in a conversational tone; he might have been discussing what God-awful thing Akrennians liked for breakfast instead of pancakes. "We'd be sucked out into space and die essentially instantly - though I have heard one can survive in a vacuum for a good 30 seconds if one exhales completely first... of course, Akrennians have superior lung capacity, so I'd see you around a minute later..."

Korso just clenched his teeth and tried to force his heart to stop trying to slam its way out of his chest, and listened to Preed pontificate. It was something to focus on, no matter what he was actually saying.

"All in all, I can think of a myriad less-pleasant ways to meet one's demise. Many of which you humans have devised for use on one another. Drawing, quartering, burning at the stake - I must admit, it's _fascinating_ -"

"Is this supposed to make me feel  _better?"_ Korso grated. His eyes squeezed shut so hard he began to see starbursts behind his eyelids. Flashes of floating lights, and suddenly he was back years ago and millions of miles away. Staring out an escape pod's window, back toward everything he'd ever known and understood and trusted, watching as everything went up in an explosion of fire and sound and fury, this was not really happening -

"Well, it should," Preed's nasal snark brought him back. "Because even in the worst case here, if absolutely everything goes wrong, what happens to us will be nowhere near as excruciating as any horrible thing you've dreamed up."

"You are  _not_  helping."

Preed sighed, and Korso felt him deflate, sharp angles moving off to give him as much precious space as possible. "Re- _lax._  These power cuts are a routine precaution – in fact, I'd be worried if it didn't happen. And even if we were to be detected," Korso could hear the smirk in his voice now. "I specifically picked a ship whose captain I happen to know regularly pays off the Drej to look the other way."

" _Pays them off?_ With what? Blue bastards don't care about money."

"Now, do you really think you'd be happier knowing that?"

A beat of silence while Korso considered, and decided no, he really didn't want to know.

"In any case," Preed continued slowly, fixing him with a heavy-lidded copper eye. "You have more chance of being burned at the stake than dying here, however brief and anticlimactic an event it would be. Remember who you're running with now – I'd never let us be captured or unceremoniously disposed of. It'd be... embarrassing."

Korso opened his eyes and let them adjust to the darkness. Now he could make out the sharp outlines of a toothy smile, dim light glinting off slick points. "Good to know," he croaked, cleared his throat. The footsteps above faded – the lights buzzed and flickered back on, and the steady thrum of the ship's engine filled his ears again. All the white noise drowned out his mellowing heartbeat, and the pressure didn't seem as hostile. The walls retreat, and he can breathe.

"You will  _not_  be exterminated." He could barely hear Preed over the returning roar of the engine, but maybe he isn't meant to.

A deep breath, in and out, and he gave his – what the fuck was he? Friend? Enemy of his enemy? - gave Preed a grunt and jerky nod, which was smoothly returned. They lapsed into silence and his momentary panic is forgotten. He didn't even know why, but he did feel better. He shouldn't, Preed wasn't what anyone sane would call comforting, but. He could settle back against a wall and let his eyes go out of focus over the toothy grin a foot or so away.

The stars weren't bursting behind his eyes, the world wasn't exploding anymore, he could hang in space a while until his breathing matched Preed's, slow and regular again, and faded into the engine's hum.

In the present traumatic day, Korso tries to do the same.

There's still a white-noise engine thrum, but now it's from the oxygen and water reclamation systems keeping them all alive a while longer, and now he's just another kind of stowaway.

But now Preed's not here for him to match his breathing to, or give him twisted-logic reassurances. He's in another room with his skull split open and when Korso closes his eyes he can see red and gray matter spattered across the metal work table, and he's just trapped in another box, a brightly-lit one this time, full of horses and scrap -

The wheel on the metal door turns with a grinding squeal, and the iron slab scrapes open; out bustles the sturdy-built woman in the shower cap and welder's apron. She peels off the rubber gloves (God, he doesn't ever, ever want to know what those stains are on them) and looks at him in surprise.

"Hell's Bells, son, you been standing there the whole time?

Korso turns, frowning and blinking, uncomprehending. "How long's it been?"

"Almost four hours," Rue hurries over to one of the orderly-chaotic piles of scrap metal and starts digging through it. "You best at least sit down, you look half-dead on your feet. Wish I could offer you something to eat, you can still dig around, eat whatever's there, but." She stands back up with a shrug, small pieces of flat metal in both hands. "Still busy."

Korso hesitates, makes a rough sound in the back of his throat. He clears it and turns it into a growled word. "How's...?"

"Hanging in there." She stands planted and solid, looking him in the eye with her fists on her hips. She's a tough old bird, but stands of graying hair are escaping from under the shower cap, and her face is pale and drawn, lines beginning to stand out more clearly. "And don't worry," she says more softly. "I'm not going to give up until your friend's safe."

"He's not..." Korso sighs, and sinks down onto a deflated, threadbare couch. He's suddenly so tired. "Thanks."

"I should tell you, though," she says haltingly, eyeing him carefully. "I don't know exactly how he's going to -"

"I don't want to hear it." Korso shuts his eyes.

"It's important." She says firmly. "Now, I can't knit the bone back together on its own, there's too much damage. And Akrennian skulls are segmented anyway, the crack's right down a serration. I'm going to have to put in a plate." She holds up one of the pieces of scrap, and Korso stares. It registers for the first time -

"That's going in his _skull."_ he says flatly. "That used to be part of a ship, and you're going to blast it into his head with a goddamn blowtorch?"

"You don't want to see him without it," she returns, unblinking and grim. "I know what I'm doing here, but you need to know that even if this works-" she pauses, frowning, and continues. "Now, back on Earth, I had a beautiful chestnut gelding. His name was Persimmon-"

"What's your fucking  _horse_  got to do with anything?"

"Just hear me out, boy! I'm talking sense here." she barks right back – and Korso shuts his mouth. "Now. My Persimmon was the sweetest, most gentle-tempered horse in Montana. Cool as a cucumber, polite as the Queen of England, and always glad to see you. See you comin', stick his nose out for a how-d'ya-do, whether you had a carrot or not."

A faint smile spreads across her weathered face. "Now, one day he's out in his paddock and some half-wit pilot drunk off his ass decides to buzz ten feet above the ground over my ranch. I heard the CLANG from all the way inside, and my poor Simmon's laying spread flat out on his side, all dazed and cuckoo-"

"Wait," Korso holds up his hand, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth in spite of himself. "Your horse got brained by a  _ship?"_  He lets out a harsh, barking laugh. It feels good. "Shit. I'd say it was slow in the head already!"

"You hush up about Simmon!" Rue shakes her finger at him, but she's smiling too. "Bless his baby bones he went up with everything else in the big boom... Poor little derpy hooves, dumb as a post before and after. Important thing s..." her smile fades, and the steel comes back. "I was able to save him. Got to him in time to replace the damage with a plate – synthetic bone, mind, not metal. And he made it."

"Well. Thanks for the pep talk." Korso sighs and rubs his temples.

"I'm not done, mister patience. Hold  _your_  horses. My point is – he survived, but he wasn't really my sweet Persimmon anymore. Horses get brain damaged just the same as people, and – hell, I'm no brain surgeon. Couldn't fix everything. He came back different – meaner. Spooked a lot easier, bit where he'd only nuzzled before. Come near him with a sugar cube, and he'd kick you soon as look at you. And he suffered, too, poor thing was always in pain, and never happy like he was, again. Maybe it was merciful on him the Drej came a year later..."

Korso looks up at her and she can feel him digging his heels in, stubborn as her old friend. "Preed is not a horse."

"No, he's not." Rue shakes her head slowly. "But you have to understand, son – he might not be the same as he was before this. Just gotta be ready for that. Something like this, it changes a guy."

Korso folds his arms and nods, hunches defensively and silent, remembering giant, broken hunks of a planet exploding into space. He knows all about changes.

"Well, I had to tell you." Rue lets her hands drop back to her sides. "Wouldn't be right not to. I swore an Oath, ya know."

He grunts and nods again, digging his fingertips into his arms instead of articulating. "Well," he says at last, voice raw and gravelly with fatigue. "Maybe it won't be that bad. He was never that sweet to begin with."

Rue lets out a throaty chuckle, sounding like a chain-smoker who'd recently given it up. The dark note is still there. "Not a shock. 'Krennians are generally an ornery bunch, don't usually expect to see a human runnin' with one."

Korso rolls his shoulders in a slow shrug, doesn't meet her straight-as-an-arrow gaze. "We have an understanding." He lets his eyes rove around her shack, resting on a framed portrait of a horse he hadn't really paid attention to until now. "Hey – that your boy there? Simmon?"

Rue smiles – if she notices the deliberate subject change, she doesn't pursue it. "Yep! That's my baby. Beautiful, ain't he?"

He squints at the painting. You can't always tell with horses, but he's sure of it – the thing's eyes are crossed. "Either the artist fucked up," he says, grinning. "Or that bump on the head really did knock a few screws loose."

Rue throws her head back and belly-guffaws like she hasn't in years. "Oh – hoo-boy, Joe!" she laughs, or maybe whinnies. "That was done before his little accident! And the artist's got his spittin' image – that silly face is just the one his mama gave him!"

Korso can't help it – he laughs too. And it feels good; he feels the tension melt from his body, knots he didn't know he had. He breathes easier, and for the first time in a long while, he's not shut up so tightly in a box -

The pounding on the door hits so hard, it almost rips off its reinforced steel hinges. Both their heads whip around and Rue gasps, all the color draining from her face as angry voices erupt on the other side.

"Christ, not again..." she whispers. "It's a raid."

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have theories about Korso in relation to Treasure Planet, Montressor, and Jim and Sarah Hawkins. It just works out too damn well. And lets me torture him some more. Which is always my main objective.

Preed floated in a dark red expanse, every bit of it pain. Every inch of him was paralyzed by muscle-freezing, excruciating lockjaw agony. He couldn't feel individual parts of his body, didn't know if he even had a body anymore, or if he'd disintegrated into nothing, just a disembodied concentration of mind-numb torture. He couldn't even scream, but he did hear something... and it took him a moment to realize that the awful mewling sounds were coming from himself.

He must have ears, because there was a rushing in them. Like being swept underwater in a blinding current – but he could breathe, there was something in his nostrils and mouth, blowing air into his lungs, hard plastic tubing ground against his teeth. And his head – yes, he had a head – was on fire. It was floating somewhere a few stories above him or maybe a mile underground, the strangest detached, numb pressure ringed his head like a vice.

He gasped, choking on the thing in his throat, and his eyes snapped open on red and amber clouds of anesthetic fog.

Something loomed in front of him and it was several seconds before he could organize the fuzzy shapes into a weathered human face, with hard blue eyes narrowed not in hostility, but concern.

"Just stay quiet," Korso's voice grates in his pounding head, but something's wrong. His face is right in front of Preed's, on his level just inches from him, but his voice sounds muffled and it's coming from somewhere off to the right, and miles away. "We're going dark again."

It's already going dark. Korso's face swims and melts together and disappears.

"He's out again," Korso looks up as Rue shuts the door behind them and locks the iron wheel into place.

"Probably a good thing," Rue hurries over to the table and starts peeling off the tape from Preed's wrists, sliding IV needles out of his veins. "The sedation'll last a while longer, but that morphine'll wear off first. When he wakes up, he'll wake up hurtin'."

Korso slides his arms under the limp knees and shoulders, lifting him as easily as he knows how, trying so hard to be smooth and gentle, even with his hands shaking so hard  _(God, he needs a cigarette)_ he can barely hold on. Preed's head is held together by gauze and sutures, but it's not nearly enough; his skull will fall apart along the cracks, the metal plate's not in yet, and there's nothing keeping -

"Open up!" A violent banging erupts on the other side of the door. "Under Peace Regulations Division 6, we have the authority to search the premises for Human fugitives -"

"Just a minute now, I'm – I'm not decent!" Rue yells, running to a wall and shoving aside a pile of medical equipment and relics from another life. There's a hatch behind the debris, and she yanks the door open, motioning furiously. "Give a lady a moment to get her drawers on!"

Korso hurries across the room, Preed held against his chest – he's squirming a little, writhing in unconscious pain, and Korso tries to keep him still without touching his head. Then he stops, staring at the square, dark hole Rue's opened in the wall.

God, it was just a tiny storage compartment, smaller than a closet, and he didn't see how he would fit in there alone, much less both of them. And it'd be pitch-black once Rue closed the door behind them-

"Get in now, or it's all over!" Rue hisses, but Korso's still paralyzed. So she jabs a finger at Preed, his still unconscious face contorted in agony. "If you're caught, what do you think'll happen to him?"

Korso jolts, all the adrenaline coming back in a rush – and he ducks into the tiny space, contracting himself as much as he can, curling around Preed in a protective shell.

"I'll get rid of them, doncha worry," she looks down at them, framed in the square of light. "And then I'll get you out of here. Just keep him quiet, and for God's sake, don't knock that head anymore!" He gives a jerky, resolute nod, his jaw clamped tight – and she softens for just a moment. "It'll be all right son. I promise."

A grinding of metal, and Rue shoves the door shut, plunging them into darkness.

# # #

This wasn't the first raid Korso had sweated through – it was just the most uncomfortable. Five years ago, at least he'd had room to breathe and a steady supply of oxygen, and hadn't had to worry about getting brain matter on his hands at any moment. This shouldn't bother him at all. But maybe, like every other human alive now, he had something of a persecution complex, an ever-present paranoia. But in their line of work, it wasn't really a bad thing.

Akrennian buildings were dark, metal and concrete cubes stacked on top of one another, and from the inside it was just another box – but at least it was a roomy one. Their beady, sensitive little eyes liked the dark; Korso never asked, but he always figured because of that and the little vestigial wing membranes, they'd evolved from some kind of cave-dwelling bat. But right now, all the lights in this particular cube were turned up to the max. It was still dim for Korso, but enough to make Preed put on a pair of dark lenses. Apparently, in a bright, noisy galaxy, the average Akrennian spent a fortune on sunglasses.

" _Montressor?_ " Preed squinted at the rust-colored powder on the mirror-top table surface. "That backwater rock? What possible reason could we have for setting foot in that dreary hole?"

"What, you too good for the Outer Rim now?" Korso snorted – careful to do so away from the lines on the glass.

"It's just that there's nothing  _there."_  Preed swept a carefully measured portion of powder into a plastic baggy, long fingers sealing it with practiced articulation. "A population of ore-mining hicks, a one-ship spaceport... and they're all such straitlaced, clean-cut  _work ethic_  sorts," he wrinkled his long snout as if the last few words were particularly foul. "We'd never get this batch off our hands. The only ones who might be interested are-"

"Humans." Korso fixed Preed with a baleful blue eye, talking around the cigarette clenched in his teeth. It wasn't lit, it hadn't been for days, but the faint lingering taste fooled his brain enough to keep his hands from shaking. Not during this delicate work.

"Really, Captain," Preed looked up at him and flicked his dark glasses off, beady copper eyes dilated in the unaccustomed light. "There have got to be a grand total of – five, six surviving humans on Montressor... and you think we'll be able to turn a profit there?"

"Didn't say that," Korso mumbled out of the side of his mouth. Now that the glasses were off, he didn't meet Preed's gaze. "And I didn't say 'we.'" His voice dropped further, and he busied himself with another line and razor.

"Uh-huh." Preed nodded dubiously. "And how long will you be gone?"

"I don't know."

"You don't  _know?"_

"I just need a few weeks, all right? Just leave it alone."

"A few-"

"Leave it  _alone_."

"Might I ask  _why?"_

"No."

Preed set aside the last bag on his side and leaned back, crossing his spindly arms and frowning. "You're going halfway across the galaxy," he said slowly. Korso rolled his eyes, he could fairly taste the disapproval from here. "To a nowhere planet, alone, no partner or backup, in an area where humans are a rather harshly endangered species-"

"I said drop it, Preed!"

"And you refuse to tell me  _why?_  Really now, how am I  _not_  supposed to have a problem with this?"

Korso leaned back as well and folded his arms, unconsciously mirroring the Akrennian sitting across from him. "It's all on me," he growled. "Now for the last time,  _drop it,_ or I will kick your bony ass! This doesn't concern you."

"If you're really thinking of doing something so  _spectacularly_ stupid, yes it  _does_  concern-"

_BANG._

Both their heads whipped around to look at the door, nearly bashed off its flimsy hinges by the battering-ram force of the knock on the other side.

Preed glared at Korso. "We're not done here." Then he raised his voice, rolling his eyes at the door in exasperation. "You're six days early! We have until the 30th-"

"This isn't about the lease! This area is subject to random search, under Peace Regulations Division 6, we have the authority to-"

"Shit!" Korso spat. "Division fucking 6!"

Preed said something in Akrennian that had no Human equivalent. He'd once gleefully explained that the closest translation was  _"defecating on your mother while her children watch."_  Horrifying as it was that Akrennians had a  _specific word_  for this, it wasn't as bad as being apprehended here, in an Akrennian's house, with a pile of illegal drugs, and no-

" _Visa!"_ Korso hissed. "Preed, where's my new visa?"

"I – it's still out for authentication-"

"Merciful fucking Christ on a cracker, you skimped on the bribe, didn't you?" Korso fumed, resisting the urge to grab Preed by the bony shoulders, and shake.

"Well  _ex-cuse me,_  it was either that or  _eat_  this week, and I thought you'd prefer-"

_BANGBANGBANG. "Due to increased Human traffic, we are authorized under Division 6 to-"_

"Leave it alone, leave it alone!" Preed smacked Korso's hands away from where he was frantically scooping up the powder, catching them and pulling the larger human away.

"If they find this here, we're done-"

"They won't care about that, they'll care about  _you!"_  Preed steered Korso away from the table and shoved him across the room, hard hands against his shoulder blades and the small of his back.

" _Just a miii-nuuute!"_  he called over his shoulder, voice a good octave higher than usual, with an edge of controlled hysteria.

"Shit,  _shit-_ "Korso's eyes darted around the one-room block. Nowhere to hide – no closet, he'd be slightly obvious under the rug-

"Here!" Preed lifted up a corner of the blanket hanging over the edge of the long, narrow cot against the wall.

Korso's eyes narrowed at the tiny dark space. "No-"

" _YES!"_

_BANG._  The door flew open, and in stomped a pair of hulking, armed guards. They took in the dim interior, the mirrored table covered in powder and razors... and the Akrennian grinning at them from across the room.

"Hello, gentlemen!" Preed lounged on the cot, long legs crossed, feet dangling near the floor. "How may I be of service?"

There was a long silence – then one of the formally sanctioned home invaders grunted something that might have been a laugh. "I thought it was customary to at least try to hide the  _table full of drugs_  when you're being inspected."

"I've never been much for tradition," Preed shrugged airily, shifted on the cot. "I suppose I just feel like being honest with you fine officers."

Under the bed, Korso held his breath and tried not to sneeze. The thin cloth mattress sagged even under Preed's stringy weight, and it pressed into his back. He clenched his teeth and fists, mentally screaming every single curse word in every language he could remember. Akrennian swear words  _did_  come in handy.

"This..." the other guard goggled at the mess of illegality. "Is definitely honest."

"Indeed!" Preed clapped his hands. "So honest, in fact, that I simply  _must_  offer you some... refreshments!"

"If we keep our mouths shut, you mean."

"Something like that. Would you care for a few kilos of-"

"Mmgh!" There was a brief, desperate noise from under the bed. One of Preed's feet whipped underneath, connecting with Korso's ribs.

"Please excuse me," Preed gave a sweet, horrifying, snaggletoothed smile, rubbing his chest and giving a weak cough. "I fear I'm coming down with a touch of – of something. Now, might I interest you in-"

"Save the bribe, lowlife, that's not why we're here."

"Ah. Then to what do I owe this pleasure?"

" _Under Division 6 of the Jirac Nor Peace Statutes, we have the authority to-"_

"Yes, yes, I heard you the first eight times. But what are-"

"We've been getting reports of residents harboring escaped Human property."

"Ah. And I take it you don't mean property  _belonging to_  Humans?" They didn't respond, and Preed's grin faded. "No, I don't suppose you  _would_  enjoy humor, would you?"

"What? I think it's funny. It's always funny when a human gets fried by the Drej.  **ZZZZAAAAP** _ **!**_ **"**

Quiet the space of half a breath, and suddenly the cot under Preed has gone very still.

"In any case – I assure you, you'll find no humans here-"

"I  _SMELL_ Human." One of the guards' piglike nostrils flared, and he gave a few thunderous sniffs.

"Oh – well!" Preed smirked, fidgeting on the cot, which squirmed again."I may have had one here last night – say what you will about them, they  _do_  have some rather unique  _talents-!"_ another noise from underneath him; he coughed again, very bouncily resettled with a pointed " _a-HEM!"_

"Too much information." The guard grimaced. "We only care if you got one in here."

"Oh, come on." The other one grabbed his cohort's shoulder and turned him away, mumbling in a voice he probably thought was quiet. "This guy was dumb enough to leave all this-" he gestured at the table - "out where we could see it. What else could he possibly be hiding?"

Preed smiled innocently and stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around, doing an excellent job of looking none-too-bright.

"...You got a point." They turned to face him with arms folded, a united front of gullibility. "We will just be taking some of this-"

"Of course!" Preed waved magnanimously while the cot started to shake.

"And be on our way." The guard gave a parting nod while his partner grabbed as much powder as he could. He gave a cursory glance to the one-room cube, while Preed's grin reached near-maniacal proportions. "Nice place you got here."

They hulked out the door, replacing it on its hinges and closing it behind them. There was a moment of quiet while their footsteps faded.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Preed sank down and relaxed. "Station guards never have more than a brain cell between them -"

"You BASTARD!" Korso roared, bursting out from under the cot like a Tasmanian Devil out of Hell. He slammed Preed against the wall before the lanky son of a bitch could react, shoving his angry face right up to his snout, teeth bared. " _You – you bas-_ " he panted. He couldn't breathe or see, he was seeing red, blood vessels must be literally flooding his eyes-

"I had to pay them off – they would have looked!" Preed croaked, while Korso's hands tightened around his neck. "You don't think it's worth a couple kilos-"

"The  _DRUGS?"_  Korso exploded, spit spraying Preed's face. "Fuck the drugs, I – I -" he dragged some air into his lungs, couldn't talk anymore. "I just..." he trailed off, and his head dropped low. Head hanging, shoulders heaving, he leaned fully against Preed and the wall, would have fallen over otherwise.

Preed opened his mouth to say something – then shut it again.

_Zap._

It made sense now. The way there was something behind the fury in Korso's eyes, the way he almost choked Preed's thick neck. It wasn't aggressive, it was desperate, the way a drowning man clung to a life preserver.

So he stopped fighting, and spoke very quietly.

"You will  _not_  be exterminated."

Korso stared – and, slowly, the rage and fear and sharp survival instinct faded. He relaxed his death grip on Preed, and his hands fell limp to his sides. He took a deep breath, blinked and looked around as if he'd forgotten where he was.

Straddling Preed and pressing him into the wall. Kneeling on his bed. Knobbly knees and elbows in his ribs.

He gave an exhausted grunt and picked himself up off the cot, shoving himself away. He stood up and turned away, took a few steps before his energy petered out again, and he stopped in the middle of the room.

"I'll get that visa tonight, Captain." he heard from behind him. "You won't have to do that again."

"Thanks." Korso mumbled, barely a coherent word. It wasn't one of his favorites. He dug in his pocket for his bent, chewed cigarette and stuck it between his teeth again. "What're you gonna pay 'em off with, rest'a that?" He jerked his head at the considerably smaller pile of powder.

"You're the one who told me not to be so stingy with bribes."

Korso grunted, and jammed his hands into his pockets, pulled his overcoat closer around his shoulders. The wasted cig did nothing to stop the shaking – but then, this time it wasn't nicotine pangs.

Another moment of quiet, and Preed slid off the cot. "You're serious about going to Montressor."

An assenting grunt.

"I'm going with you."

" _No!_ " Korso turned around, glaring. "What part of ' _keep your fucking snout out of it'_  don't you understand?"

"You need backup. Another set of eyes can be extremely beneficial, as I thought you'd realized by now-"

"I can take care of myself."

"No doubt – in the right circumstances. As our friends just now demonstrated, this is a very unfriendly galaxy for Humans. You need me." A beat of quiet. "But that shouldn't be the only reason."

Korso snorted. "Oh, please. Enlighten me – one reason I should take you with me."

"Same reason I still call you 'Captain,' even though you haven't been Captain of anything for nearly ten years." A few quiet footsteps from behind him as his First Mate of nothing stepped closer. "A second pair of eyes is valuable... but trust is an even greater commodity."

Korso held very quiet and still – then gave a long, deep sigh. His shoulders sagged as a wave of exhaustion overwhelmed him. After the adrenaline wore off, it just left him feeling drained.

"I'd like to leave as soon as possible." He said just above a mumble. "Tomorrow morning at the latest, unless you're ready to pick up and go tonight."

"I make it my business to be ready." Preed kept his face studiedly neutral and level as Korso turned around. "Now... might I ask again – why Montressor?"

Korso jammed his hands into his pockets, gave another shrug. "I got... people there." he looked down at the floor – then back up at Preed, unblinking, as if daring him to comment. "It was a long time ago. But no, this isn't gonna be the most profitable trip. Might put us in the red. Besides, you'll probably be bored as hell. You still want to come?"

Preed gave a smooth shrug to match. "I'm sure I'll find something to do. In any case, I certainly look forward to meeting-"

"Shit – don't even – just stop talking." Korso shut his eyes, held up one hand. The other one went to rub his temple. "Do me a favor, huh? Just don't talk to me for a while. Don't let me think too hard about this, or I really will leave your ass right here."

"Perish the thought." Preed smirked, with a wave of his hand. "But... before we begin our preparations, I have something for you."

"What?" Korso blinked, uncomprehending. "You got...?"

"Now, over the past few weeks," Preed reached into a pocket in his baggy shirt. "You've been struggling with a particularly sharp addiction to an old Earth substance known as tobacco." he brought a small box out of his pocket and handed it to a bewildered Korso.

"If I remember correctly, your favored variety are known as-"

" _Morleys..._ " Korso breathed, with a reverence reserved for holy relics in a temple. "Sweet merciful Christ in a whorehouse..." he looked from the red-and-white box in his hands up at Preed, mouth hanging so far open his chewed-up cigarette almost fell out. "Where in the hell did you get these? I haven't seen a pack in – God, seven, eight years!"

"From my visa 'authenticator.'" Preed grinned, wide and toothy. "Who happens to be an aficionado of rare Earth relics. Consolation prize for the extra wait. I believe these are your brand...?"

"Jesus fuck,  _yes!"_

Korso popped the used, abused cigarette corpse out of his mouth and dropped it on the floor, grinding it under his boot through force of habit. Preed's beady eyes followed it down to the ground, then slowly back up at Korso, who smiled at him in oblivious pleasure as he lit up another little white stick.

"Preed, you brilliant son of a bitch," Korso mumbled around the cigarette, breathing in every precious molecule of smoke, letting it out in a dragon's-breath puff around his head. "I could fuckin' kiss you."

Preed blinked slowly at the small pile of damp ash on his floor.

"Yes, well... first, you're cleaning that up."

# # #

Five years later and Korso wasn't back under that bed, but he was just as trapped, and the Earth was exploding behind his eyes again, same as it always did when the walls closed in. And there were still sharp points against his skin, vestigial wings and nasal ridges against his neck, and ragged breathing he still tried to match.

The sound from outside was muffled. He couldn't hear what was going on – faint gruff voices, Rue's higher pitch, still gravely ( _did she smoke Morleys too?)._

Preed shifted against him, writhed slow with every muscle and joint locked. The emergency sutures were holding, his brains were still in his head instead of in Korso's hand, but his eyes were still squeezed shut, and he still moved feverishly, as if struggling against Korso's grip.

Then he started to scream.

 


	6. Chapter 6

"Shut up!" Korso hissed, clamping one hand down over Preed's snout and mouth, stifling the agonized sounds leaking through. His other hand still held onto the shifting plates of metal and bone. "Goddammit Preed, I know you can hear me – there are soldiers out there, and if you want to still be hurting in a minute instead of dead,  _shut the fuck up!_ "

The awful noises lessened while he was talking – but once Korso clamped his own mouth shut, they started up again.

Heavy footfalls pounded outside as guards marched around the back room. Bangs and crashes of overturned furniture, bangs on the walls... They were checking for hollow spaces. Just like the one they currently huddled inside. The station guards were making so much noise out there Korso couldn't imagine them hearing anything from inside the secret compartment, but damn it, once he stopped talking Preed started-

"Shit, shit – Okay, fine."

So he talked. He didn't know what to say, or what he was saying once he said it, just growled in a low, rumbling whisper that wouldn't leak through the steel bulkhead as easily as a high-pitched cry. He said anything that came into his head, eyes shut against his own rising claustrophobia. Both of them hung onto the sound of his voice.

"We'll get your head fixed, lay low for a while if that horsey broad'll let us camp out, then get back to the Val, blow on out of here, never look back..."

"...I'm still here, you're still here, we're both still here. I dunno if that's a good thing, we're still in this godforsaken crawl space. But we're getting out. I am not fucking dying in here, and neither are you..."

" _...Gimme, gimme, gimme, the honky-tonk blues..."_

He kept going until he realized his voice was the only sound. He broke off his off-key sing-mumbling, and listened.

Nothing. He took a few careful deep breaths. Still nothing. All quiet on the western front, just the constant background noise of the spaceport's human ghetto, and far-off engines.

"Think they're gone?" Korso murmured, not sure what he was expecting for an answer. He didn't get one, except for shallow, ragged breathing and soft moans of unconscious pain. Another long moment of freezing, sock-still quiet, and hard listening. Korso frowned; he didn't like this. It screamed "SET-UP," anywhere else and the soldiers would be lying low, waiting to pounce once they emerged. Hell, it's what  _he_ would do, he'd done it before. But station guards had never been that bright, or persistent... and he'd never been quite so desperate.

So he opened the wall. Thank fuck there was a latch on the inside, or they might both have suffocated. And once that door was open a crack and he blinked in the harsh fluorescent light, he could breathe again. The walls weren't closing in , and he wouldn't be buried alive in a crowded station.

Korso carefully widened the crack enough to see out of with one eye, and peered through. The room was empty, silent – but it had been torn apart. The makeshift table made from a tiny craft's wing lay at a sharp slant, shoved off one of its supports. Shelves of equipment had been overturned, vents uncovered, wall panels ripped out. Medical supplies littered the floor. Broken glass, plastic tubing, metal instruments and needles scattered the room, like a tornado had struck. Then, he realized something even more disturbing than the destruction he saw: what he didn't see.

"Rue?" He croaked, voice raw. He held his breath and waited – but there was no answer.

He pushed the door all the way open, and dragged both of them out. Broken glass crunched under his boots, and he stepped through puddles of clear fluid leaking from plastic bags.  _"Rue?"_

Nothing.

"Shit." He kicked the fallen metal slab off its remaining support, and it clattered down to lay flat on the floor. He stopped it shaking with his foot and set Preed down on it as gently as he could force himself to move, head last.

"Sit tight," he grunted, though his first mate's eyes were still squeezed shut. At least he'd stopped screaming. "I'll be right back." He pounded out the door, barreling through the rest of the tight makeshift house's interior. Cramped bedroom, cluttered main room, nothing. She was gone, and they were alone.

Korso stomped back into the rear room – and froze. Preed splayed unconscious and limp on the wing table. The room was destroyed. Rue was gone, taken by the guards, and he had no idea what to do.

"Okay," he mumbled, just to hear himself talk, anything besides the silence of the empty house. "They can't hold her for long, they got nothin'. She'll be back soon and finish the job." He sank down to sit on the wing beside Preed, looking hard for any change. "This is fine, everything's – hey."

Preed's eyes were open. "Hello, Captain..." he rasped, a dry whisper on a rush of breath between snaggled teeth.

"Hey." Korso stared. He shouldn't be awake. Nobody was supposed to be awake and talking when their head was  _open,_  Korso could look down and see through the gap in the unjoined metal plates and bone to something soft and gray and exposed, you weren't supposed to be able to see peoples' brains-

"How you feeling?"

"I..." Preed's coppery eyes slipped in and out of focus, not quite able to stay fixed on Korso's face. "Don't know."

"Well, you can't be great. You were screaming a minute ago, but..." Korso frowned, messing with his nose and chin stubble with one hand, still reeling at the fact that  _he could see into his friend's skull,_  and not being able to look away. "It still hurts – right?"

"Oh, yes..." Preed spoke softly, almost dreamily. "But it's... very far away. I'm not sure, but. I believe this head belongs to somebody else. Perhaps it's yours?" An awful, weak laugh.

Still open. And now that Korso couldn't stop staring, looked up close and in the light, he could see exactly how that skull was broken. Two separate metal pieces; the big main plate and a thin strip already set into the bone. They hadn't been joined yet, they needed to be pressed together and stuck with something, they  _needed to be._

And he had to get out of there. He had to get out of that room, out of that house, get out in the open and  _do something,_  get away from Preed so he wouldn't have to look at that unfinished project in his head, and the soft tissue underneath.

The walls were closing again. A planet was dying again.

"Can you hang in there until I get back?"

"Back?" Preed was still smiling, vacant and off-kilter. He was sleepy, and everything was so  _funny_...

"Rue – the lady who's fixing you – she got picked up by some station goons. I need to go get her back if she's gonna finish."

"What? But that's...  _you're_  wanted, you won't be able to-"

"I have to try!" It wasn't a good sign when the guy with the split-open head made more sense than you did. But Korso was looking away now, he didn't want to see bleary eyes and gray matter, or that terrible smiling. "You just keep breathing, stay awake." Korso turned away, and started to get up. "I'll be back in a-"

Something stopped him.

"Wait..." Long, bony fingers had caught the cuff of his sleeve. "Don't go!" The words sounded strange; maybe the weirdest part of the entire awful day. Preed's head wasn't supposed to be open, and vulnerability didn't belong in his voice.

"I have to, can't fix you myself! Just relax, I'll be right back-"

" _I_ won't be!" Preed almost shouted, words running together with the effort. "You go – and I don't know if I'll be here when you get back!" He wasn't dreamy or slurring anymore, he rattled off the words, loud and staccato and desperate.

Korso froze, and for a moment it was just him, half getting up off the floor and Preed hanging onto his sleeve, both of them struggling to breathe. Preed against the pain, Korso from the rising panic.

This was the worst kind of enemy. This wasn't something he could punch or kick or shoot or drill-sergeant bully into submission. You couldn't get past this with forged identification or firepower. He couldn't fix this. He didn't know how.

"Please. Joseph." That got him. Preed never called him by his name. He was always  _Captain_ , he'd never once heard that alien mouth form the syllables that made up Joseph Korso. "Don't go."

Korso sat back down. "Okay." he said quietly. "I'll fix this, you'll be fine, I'll figure out-" he was looking around now at all the scattered equipment, all around the wrecked room, there had to be something here that would help them.

"You will... not be exterminated." Then he saw it. "Hang on!"

Then he was up, scrambling across the wet, littered floor, snatching up two things, the only things he recognized among the  _doctor shit_ , the only things he knew how to use. A small handheld blowtorch, and a vice-adjust wrench.

"Okay, this'll work –  _Preed!"_  The Akrennian's eyes had slipped shut again. Korso stopped himself from grabbing Preed and shaking him, instead he banged a fist on the wing table. "Don't you go to sleep on me!"

"Is that... an order?" Preed murmured, forcing his eyes back open into painful slits.

"Yes, goddammit! You keep your eyes open, keep looking at me, no matter how much it hurts! And..." he faltered. Once he made himself take a breath, he had time to realize  _fuck, what am I doing?_  He had a wrench and a blowtorch, was he really going to weld Preed's head together with him awake? This was insane surreal. But it was happening.

Korso took a deep breath and let it out, hand resting on the undamaged half of his friend's head.

"Preed, this is really going to hurt."

 _Step one, set the wrench teeth to bite the separate metal plates, and tighten. The metal scrapes and creaks and he works as fast as he can, don't give Preed time to scream. And God, they are the_ worst _sound, he didn't know anyone could make sounds like that, human or Akrennian or animal crawled up from Hell._

_Korso grits his teeth and keeps talking, drown out the screams with nonsense and the blood rushing and pounding in his own ears._

_Step two: Blowtorch. A blue flame, tiny and controlled and neat and deadly. Hold the fire to the split, squint against the glare and the flying sparks. (No goggles, are you an idiot? He has to be, doing this.) One lands on his hand and he barely feels the burn, moves that hand to press over Preed's eyes, hold his head still while he screams and writhes, keep talking in his one remaining ear._

_And once it's over, throw the damn things in his hands across the room and don't see where they fall._

Korso came back to himself. The tunnel vision receded, and so did the pounding in his head, he could see and breathe and think again. And slowly the screaming faded and they both collapsed, exhausted. Korso made sure the plate was solid, and didn't touch or look at it again. Didn't seem real that he'd just done that, but the gap was closed and Preed was breathing.

Korso tried to get his own breathing back under control, and told Preed it was over. He was telling both of them, really, and he held both of them together. They stayed that way for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I was kind of hesitant to even write this. Kept wondering, am I really doing this? Am I finally going too far? ... But then I realized that I've been writing Korso and Preed having ridiculously violent sex for months now, and if there IS a "going too far" line, I crossed it long ago. Yep.
> 
> Sorry about the weird disjointedness at the end. It just seemed like the best way to go. Like how in order to get through something awful, you just kind of go somewhere else in your head, and don't even know how it happens? Defense mechanisms, man. We all got 'em. I figure Korso's got a bunch. You don't really stay alive after the shit in his life, without them. Detachment mechanisms.
> 
> One more chapter, I think. This has been so much fun. Thank you for reading.


End file.
